Figure 1.

Neutrophil depletion does not influence fungal burden but is associated with increased pulmonary levels of IL-17A during infection with C. neoformans strain H99γ. BALB/c mice received an intranasal inoculum of 1 × 10⁴ CFU of C. neoformans strain H99γ in 50 μl of sterile PBS. Prior to and during infection, mice were treated with isotype control antibody (white bars) or with either anti-1A8 antibody or anti-Gr1 antibody (gray bars). Lungs were excised at day 7 post-inoculation, and neutrophil depletion, absolute numbers and percentages (A, B), pulmonary cryptococcal burden (C, D) and IL-17A production (E, F) quantified. Asterisks (*) indicate where significant differences (P < 0.05) were observed in neutrophil depleted mice compared to isotype-control treated mice following infection with C. neoformans strain H99γ. Fungal burden results are expressed as mean CFU per milliliter ± standard errors of the means. Data are cumulative of four experiments using 4 mice per group.